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Title: Genomic data as the 'hitchhiker's guide' to cattle adaptation: time to track the milestones of past selection in the bovine genome

Author
item UTSUNOMIYA, YURI - Sao Paulo State University (UNESP)
item PEREZ O'BRIEN, ANA - University Of Natural Resources & Applied Life Sciences - Austria
item Sonstegard, Tad
item SOLKNER, JOHANN - University Of Natural Resources & Applied Life Sciences - Austria
item GARCIA, JOSE FERNANDO - Sao Paulo State University (UNESP)

Submitted to: Frontiers in Genetics
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/26/2015
Publication Date: 2/10/2015
Citation: Utsunomiya, Y.T., Perez O'Brien, A.M., Sonstegard, T.S., Solkner, J., Garcia, J. 2015. Genomic data as the 'hitchhiker's guide' to cattle adaptation: Time to track the milestones of past selection in the bovine genome. Frontiers in Genetics. DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2015.00036.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The bovine species have witnessed and played a major role in the drastic socio-economical changes that shaped our culture over the last 10,000 years. During this journey, cattle “hitchhiked” on human development and colonized the world, facing strong selective pressures such as dramatic environmental changes and disease challenge. Consequently, hundreds of specialized cattle breeds emerged and spread around the globe, making up a rich spectrum of genomic resources. Their DNA still carry the scars left from adapting to this wide range of conditions, and we are now empowered with data and analytical tools to track the milestones of past selection in their genomes. In this review paper, we provide a summary of the reconstructed demographic events that shaped cattle diversity, offer a critical synthesis of popular methodologies applied to the search for signatures of selection (SS) in genomic data, and give examples of recent SS studies in cattle. Then, we outline the potential and challenges of the application of SS analysis in cattle, and discuss the future directions in this field.